Half armour from a small tournament garniture. English, Greenwich, about 1610

James I in the Line of Kings

Description

James I was crowned King of England in 1603 after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, when he had already been ruling Scotland as King James VI for 36 years. The Line of Kings has always been very male focused and consequently two of England’s most famous monarchs, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I have not been featured and the Line moved from the figure of the boy king Edward VI straight to James I.

An early mention of James I’s figure in the Line of Kings occurs in one of the Tower of London guidebooks from 1753. In 1761 a guidebook, London and its Environs Described, refers to the figure of James as sitting ‘on horseback in a complete suit of figured armour, with a truncheon in his right hand.’ The figure of James I changed after the re-display by Dr Samuel Meyrick in 1827, in particular because of the weapon James was given to hold. This was perhaps to demonstrate the purpose of his armour as sporting, because by the 1840s James I was shown with a lance. This was noted with some interest in the Tower of London guidebook of 1842, which stated ‘the burdon or lance for running at the ring with which the figure is armed, possesses a formidable appearance, being 14 feet long, and 2 feet 3 in circumference, but the handles of these lances were made hollow, and convey the idea of a weight which they do not in reality possess’. This lance can be clearly seen in the image published by Charles Knight in The Penny Magazine in 1840: it is so long that it goes off the page. It is also prominent in photographs of the Line of Kings taken from the 1860s.

What is also notable about Knight’s image is the appearance of James I’s face. Many of the images of the monarchs in the Line of Kings published by Knight show their visors closed, but this is not the case for James I. This is useful as it allows us to compare Knight’s image with a wooden head that has traditionally been believed to represent James I. The carved wooden head is constructed from two pieces of wood and was made and painted in the late seventeenth century in an attempt to display a life-like representation, to bring life to a suit of armour. It seems likely that this head is the one used for James I since about 1690.

James I is represented in the present Line of Kings display not only by his figure’s wooden head but also by a Japanese armour, which he was sent as a gift by the Shogun of Japan. This was exhibited in the past, when it was mistakenly described as having been presented by ‘the Great Mogul’, close to the Line of Kings in the Horse Armoury.